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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30053481">Good Morning, My Love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan'>arabmorgan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Secret Relationship, Some Humor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 03:13:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,423</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30053481</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny is great at keeping secrets - especially when it comes to his own secret relationship. At least, he's great at it until he isn't...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Moon Taeil/Suh Youngho | Johnny</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>78</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Johnil Fest 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The thing about Johnny was that he was usually fairly good at keeping secrets, be they his own or his friends’. He wasn’t one to blab about business that wasn’t his, even when he was drunk, but when he bungled things up – well, he certainly bungled them up spectacularly.</p><p>Considering how dramatic Johnny enjoyed being, it was probably fitting that an act of love ended up being his downfall, in all its Romeo and Juliet-esque glory. All he’d wanted to do was to wish his boyfriend a very good morning because he was the very first person that Johnny had thought of upon waking up. How was he supposed to know that in his haze of sleepiness, his muscle memory would simply take over and post that damn message to Twitter instead?</p><p>
  
</p><p>It took him an entire minute to realise exactly what he had done, and then Johnny let out a shriek of horror that was quickly muffled with his fist as he scrambled to delete the accursed tweet. The last thing he needed was to accidentally wake Ten up and have his best friend get all up in his business like he often felt entitled to do.</p><p>Johnny peeked at his phone nervously after changing for his usual morning gym session, but all was quiet on the notification front apart from the usual likes and comments on a couple of older pictures on Instagram. For the first time, he fervently thanked every higher being in existence that his numerous followers consisted mostly of other university students who were either still soundly asleep or suffering through an 8:15 a.m. class on this cold, grey Monday morning.</p><p>As of right now, his secret relationship still remained exactly what it was supposed to be: a secret. His long-suffering boyfriend didn’t even need to hear about this almost-fiasco.</p><p>With that happy thought in mind, Johnny shut the door quietly behind him and strode off down the hallway with his gym bag over his shoulder, whistling cheerily to himself. There was a dopey grin on his face as he correctly texted the morning greeting to his very favourite person. It probably wouldn’t be seen for hours yet – his boyfriend was anything but an early riser – but at least it would be the very first thing he saw when he opened his eyes.</p><p>A disaster successfully averted – Johnny really couldn’t think of a better start to the week.</p><hr/><p>The other thing about Johnny was that people seemed to have a very strange fascination with his life. He didn’t understand it at all, but all of his social media accounts had an absolutely ridiculous following, if he did say so himself.</p><p>“You’re tall, you’re smart, and you have an amazing body,” Ten had said once, his eyes sharply amused as always. “What’s not to like?”</p><p>Johnny was quite sure that there were plenty of other tall, smart men around with amazing bodies. Among his friends alone, he could count Jungwoo and Jaehyun among their ranks, and yet the whole campus pointedly refused to end its obsession with him. It wasn’t something that he often thought about, but it was certainly a bother at times – such as when his notoriously private, crowd-shy boyfriend refused to go public with him out of the very reasonable fear of having his entire life dug into out of sheer spite or plain curiosity.</p><p>“What are you thinking about?” Yuta demanded, looking over from the neighbouring treadmill with a raised brow.</p><p>Shaken back into the present, Johnny grinned carelessly. “Nothing. Just what I’m going to do later,” he said, puffing slightly as he felt a trickle of sweat wind a trail down his neck and back.</p><p>Yuta laughed, teeth flashing in his signature smile. “Oh yes, the animal shelter,” he said between breaths. “I always forget that you go every Monday. Taeil was just mentioning it yesterday.”</p><p>“Oh yes,” Johnny echoed. “Taeil.” And he hastily increased the speed of his treadmill before the conversation could reach even more dangerous waters.</p><p>Volunteering at the animal shelter was, in fact, exactly how he had met Moon Taeil for the first time. As a veteran volunteer, Taeil had been assigned to bring Johnny on a guided tour of the facilities, and had proceeded to patiently and lovingly introduce every single cat to him by name. Johnny had found it all quite amusing at first, but then Taeil had bent to pick up one of the softly mewing cats winding about his feet, and the soft, intent smile that had arisen on his face at that moment had immediately swept Johnny off his feet with the force of a storm.</p><p>Johnny was smitten in a heartbeat, but even he couldn’t have foreseen that he would spend the next eight months struggling to get that very same smile turned towards him instead of a cat.</p><hr/><p>The slow realisation that perhaps he had been less than successful after all at preventing a crisis only dawned on Johnny after lunch, and rather gradually at that.</p><p>When he spotted Taeil just a little ahead of him, trudging up to the entrance of the shelter in his snug padded coat, he couldn’t help breaking into a run, as if they had been separated for months rather than mere days. Taeil turned at the sound of Johnny’s heavy steps, and immediately he smiled, warm and welcoming, but also with an odd edge of unease to it that Johnny didn’t notice at first.</p><p>“Hi,” Johnny said, grinning and excited as he flung an arm over Taeil’s shoulders. “You look really cute today.”</p><p>Taeil laughed at that, a sudden burst of sound that made Johnny feel warm all over. “I look exactly the same as always,” he said, his head tilting up as he spoke.</p><p>“That is true,” Johnny admitted. “I suppose that means you look cute every day.” Pulling Taeil’s cold hand from where it was tucked into his jacket pocket, Johnny pressed a kiss to the back of his hand before lacing their fingers together. His steps quickened as he hastened towards the warmth of the building, keeping Taeil tucked close to his side.</p><p>An eclectic rotation of high schoolers helped to man the front counter of the animal shelter most afternoons, and it was Haechan who greeted them with his usual obnoxious enthusiasm that day.</p><p>“Look, it’s my two favourite volunteers!” Haechan cooed the moment they entered, the chilly winter breeze dogging their footsteps through the doorway. With a sunny smile, Haechan leapt out of his seat and rounded the counter to throw his arms about Taeil’s waist, quite firmly establishing exactly which of his two favourites he preferred. Johnny released Taeil’s hand to ruffle at the younger boy’s soft brown hair, snorting in fond amusement.</p><p>Taeil, as always, looked mildly surprised by Haechan’s excessive delight at his presence, and it was more than a few minutes before he finally managed to disentangle himself from the pouting boy.</p><p>“He has the hugest crush on you, you know,” Johnny muttered out of the corner of his mouth as they entered the rear of the shelter, where all the enclosures were located. The familiar, musky scent of multiple furry animals hit him in an instant, along with an excited cacophony of ringing barks.</p><p>Taeil shot him a sideways glance. “What?” he said cluelessly. Johnny only shook his head and chuckled to himself as he peeled off to the nearest cage, leaving Taeil to make his way straight to his favourite felines.</p><p>It was only an hour or so later, when they coincidentally found themselves cleaning out neighbouring cages, that Taeil randomly said, “Oh, I saw your tweet, you know.” He sounded strange, like he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or sigh, and his tone was so unusual that Johnny stopped what he was doing all together to stare at his boyfriend.</p><p>“My tweet?” he repeated, confused. Taeil didn’t even have a Twitter account, so Johnny had no idea at all what tweet he could have seen.</p><p>A moment later, like the timely intervention of fate, Johnny’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and Taeil smiled wryly before turning away to coo at yet another cat. Distractedly, still looking over at Taeil’s back and puzzling over his cryptic words, Johnny swiped at the message preview from Ten and found himself staring at an unmistakable screenshot of his incriminating morning tweet.</p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>i think you have some explaining to do mr suh~~</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>So…not as deleted off the face of the Earth as he had thought after all. Johnny felt slightly faint at the realisation that this could very well have spread to half the campus by now.</p><p>“Oh,” he said blankly. “This tweet.”</p><p>Leaning against the wire mesh of the cage on his tiptoes to peek at Johnny’s screen, Taeil nodded. “That tweet,” he agreed, and then he lifted his hand to his mouth and laughed at the look of utter horror that was slowly engulfing Johnny’s face.</p><hr/><p>“Come on, it’s not really that big a deal, is it?” Johnny complained.</p><p>Sitting on his bed and surrounded by his closest friends, who were eying him like dogs eyed bacon in a pan, he was beginning to feel unfairly cornered and very unsafe.</p><p>Ten rolled his eyes. “Yuta literally cancelled his dinner plans with his roommate so that he could come over and find out more about your secret boyfriend,” he said dryly. “Nothing says ‘big deal’ more than that.”</p><p>Jungwoo giggled, just as Yuta muttered under his breath, “Look, I <em>told</em> Taeil I’d make it up to him another day.”</p><p>There was some irony in this situation that Johnny wasn’t sure how to describe, but it almost certainly had something to do with the fact that Yuta had happily ditched the very person they were all looking for, without even knowing that Taeil was the person they were all looking for.</p><p>Waving his hand at Yuta dismissively, Ten fixed his eyes on Johnny with distinct disapproval in his deadly pout. “Anyway, I still don’t get how you managed to keep this from me,” he whined. “Me, your roommate! How could you?”</p><p>Johnny groaned and leaned back, closing his eyes before he could be tempted into spilling the entire truth to Ten’s exaggeratedly hurt expression. “It’s not a secret, okay?” he said impatiently, for what felt like the hundredth time now. “Just because I wasn’t advertising it publicly everywhere doesn’t mean I was hiding him. We hang out together all the time – maybe you guys are just blind.”</p><p>Jaehyun gave a low chuckle quite suddenly. “Jungwoo guessed that you were dating Ten at first, what with roommate proximity and all,” he said, looking far too pleased to be the bearer of news that Ten immediately mimed being sick at.</p><p>“Alright, look,” Johnny sighed at last, with a faint smirk forming on his face as he looked around. “I don’t care if you guys know, obviously, but I’m not just going to tell you who it is. Let’s at least make it a challenge. If you find out, you find out. Just don’t spread that picture anymore – he really doesn’t want to make a big thing out of it.”</p><p>“Yeah, it must be hard dating the hottest guy in school,” Jungwoo cooed, and promptly got a pillow to the face for his troubles. Yuta rocked back so hard in laughter at that that he would’ve fallen right off the side of Ten’s bed if Jaehyun hadn’t grabbed him at the last moment, and Johnny let out another deep sigh as he met Ten’s cool, amused gaze.</p><p>He really needed different friends.</p><hr/><p>Luckily, Taeil mostly just seemed amused by it all.</p><p>“It was bound to come out sometime anyway,” he said pragmatically in the face of Johnny’s guilty apologies. “And it was cute. I appreciated your morning message, even if you did accidentally post it on a public platform first.” He smiled, not quite achieving the sly look of amusement that Ten and Yuta were so good at but coming passably close, and Johnny let out a groan.</p><p>“Don’t remind me,” he sighed. “I still can’t believe I tweeted that.”</p><p>Taeil chuckled, his mouth settling back into its usual half-smile as he looked back down at his notes. “Besides, you have to admit that it’s pretty funny to have Yuta begging me to help him with his detective work when I’m the buried treasure they’re looking for.”</p><p>Johnny’s mouth fell opened in scandalised surprise as he whipped around to stare at Taeil. “He asked <em>you</em> for help? I’m gonna get him for cheating,” he grumbled.</p><p>“Get who for cheating?” Yuta asked cheerfully, pushing the door open as suddenly as if he had been hiding behind it, just waiting for the right moment to appear. Johnny jumped almost half a foot into the air in shock, but Taeil only widened his smile a fraction in welcome.</p><p>“<em>You</em>, you idiot,” Johnny said defensively. “You weren’t supposed to ask others for help with the screenshot.”</p><p>Yuta scoffed. “No, we just weren’t supposed to spread it further. It’s not like Taeil didn’t already know about it – his little friend is the one who started it all in the first place. Besides, he’s an impartial third party. Maybe he’ll notice all the suspicious things you do that I might overlook as your friend.”</p><p>Johnny didn’t even know how to respond to the absurdity of that statement without laughing out loud in Yuta’s face, and it seemed that Taeil didn’t either, as all he muttered was a slightly confused, “Sicheng’s too tall to be called ‘little’.”</p><p>Yuta either didn’t hear Taeil or didn’t care to be corrected. Instead, he stretched in a way that looked almost painful and collapsed facedown onto his own bed.</p><p>“What are you even doing here anyway? Stop harassing my roommate and get out. I need my afternoon nap,” he said, his voice coming out muffled against the sheets.</p><p>Johnny rolled his eyes at Taeil over Yuta’s prone body. “I love you, man, but trust me when I say that you’re never going to find out who I’m dating,” he said pityingly.</p><p>“Wait and see, Johnny Suh,” Yuta said nonchalantly, not even bothering to raise his head. “Just wait and see.”</p><hr/><p>It didn’t take Johnny very long to find out that Jungwoo and Jaehyun, partners in crime in anything one could possibly think of ever since they had been roomed together at the beginning of freshman year, were not in favour of Yuta’s ‘wait and see’ plan.</p><p>The first inkling that something wasn’t right occurred to him when Jungwoo appeared in Johnny’s favourite café one day with a coffee in hand, and he was fairly certain that Jungwoo didn’t even like coffee that much.</p><p>“Hey, Jungwoo!” Johnny called anyway, waving the younger man over.</p><p>Suspicious motives or not, it was always nice to see a friend around, because in Johnny’s experience, it was oddly difficult to bump into people he actually liked on campus.</p><p>Oh, he was always crossing paths with casual acquaintances or former classmates, but he could probably count on both hands the number of times he had actually managed to catch sight of his friends or Taeil without prior arrangement. It was like Murphy’s law, or the opposite – or something of the sort, anyway.</p><p>So the first time Johnny bumped into Jungwoo at the cafe, he chalked it down to a happy coincidence. The second time he spotted the conspicuously tall, slender frame powerwalking away from him as he left the library, he was mildly amazed. The third time, it wasn’t even Jungwoo he saw but Jaehyun, loitering suspiciously beside a vending machine in imitation of the worst plainclothes spy ever, and everything fell into place for Johnny at that moment.</p><p>Strolling up to Jaehyun, Johnny could clearly see the way the other man was determinedly looking anywhere but at him, as if Johnny weren’t six feet tall and rapidly approaching. “Are you two seriously stalking me?” he asked, grinning widely at the deceptively angelic, dimpled smile that Jaehyun immediately directed at him.</p><p>“Oh, I didn’t see you there, Johnny,” Jaehyun said unconvincingly, even as the tips of his ears began to tint a clear, embarrassed pink.</p><p>“Well, I suppose I <em>am</em> better at going unnoticed than you are,” Johnny teased, and Jaehyun let out a sigh as he finally relaxed, leaning his shoulder against the side of the vending machine. The gaze that he levelled on Johnny felt almost critical, as if increasing the intensity of his staring might help to uncover some clue he had previously missed.</p><p>“So we’ve been taking notes,” he said, pulling his phone out and turning it so that Johnny could see a startlingly comprehensive list of people he had been hanging out with over the past week. Maybe Jaehyun and Jungwoo weren’t that bad at covert operations after all.</p><p> “And you still haven’t figured out who it is?” he asked, amused.</p><p>Jaehyun looked slightly annoyed. “See, that’s the thing. You have actual reasons to be meeting all these people – you’re working on a group project with her,” he said, pointing to one of the names on the list before scrolling down. “You volunteer with Yuta’s roommate every week, and you’re taking a class with him this semester too. And some of these names – I mean, we all know you wouldn’t date them so we just struck them off.”</p><p>Johnny listened to Jaehyun rattle off the multiple reasons why he might or might not date various students of various majors, and had to hold back a laugh of amazement at how much legitimate work had gone into this analysis.</p><p>“Jungwoo thinks your boyfriend’s name is on this list,” Jaehyun concluded at last, “but I think we just haven’t caught you two together yet. Not a secret relationship my ass.” He sniffed, looking disgruntled and quite tired, probably from all the sneaking around he had been doing recently in his free time.</p><p>Taking pity on his two most enthusiastic yet hapless friends, Johnny sighed and relented just a little. “I’ll say this much,” he said, one corner of his mouth tugging upwards into a smirk. “Jungwoo’s right. His name is on your list.”</p><p>“His name is on our list!” Jaehyun repeated immediately, his eyes going very wide. All Johnny could do was watch silently as Jaehyun began to type furiously on his phone, before whisking off around the corner without so much as a goodbye.</p><p>Strange, but not unexpected. With a shrug, Johnny adjusted his bag on his shoulder and continued blithely on his way.</p><hr/><p>Ten too seemed to have decided that two heads were better than one, because Johnny returned to their room one afternoon to find two people already present in it, their heads bent close together over a large piece of paper with scribbles in numerous colours all over it.</p><p>“Hi,” he said, slightly confused as he set his bag down. Ten wasn’t exactly a fan of having guests in their room – other people always made too much of a mess, he had said once – so the sight before him wasn’t a common one at all.</p><p>The one who wasn’t Ten looked up and offered an endearingly shy smile. There was something about his sharply chiselled features that looked vaguely familiar, as if Johnny had seen a picture of him or spotted him briefly from across the lecture hall before.</p><p>“This is Taeyong,” Ten said shortly, choosing to frown over at his friend instead of sparing Johnny a glance. “He’s injured right now, so he’s helping me out with some research since he can’t spend all day at the dance studio overworking himself.”</p><p>Johnny recognised the name immediately – Taeyong wasn’t just one of Ten’s dance club friends; he was also a close friend of Taeil’s. The world really wasn’t very large at all. He nodded at Taeyong in greeting, who only laughed good-naturedly at Ten’s caustic words.</p><p>“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Taeyong said brightly, and even though he sounded perfectly genuine, Johnny couldn’t help letting out a groan of exasperation.</p><p>“Don’t tell me he’s got you helping him out with my secret love life rubbish,” he pleaded, kicking his shoes off and walking over to have a look at the piece of paper they were writing on.</p><p>It was indeed an entire, carefully consolidated timetable devoted to uncovering his love life. Little notes in the margins included comments such as ‘<em>couldn’t meet for lunch – on date??</em>’ and Johnny was almost thankful that Ten hadn’t chosen to work together with Jaehyun and Jungwoo. Ten on a mission was nothing short of terrifying, and together, the three of them could probably have mapped out his tracks for the whole past week down to the minute.</p><p>“Man, you guys need a life,” Johnny complained, before remembering that only one other person in the room was actually his friend. “Sorry, I mean Ten, not you, Taeyong.”</p><p>Taeyong didn’t seem to be listening. He had his finger on one timeslot – a Saturday lunch – and seemed deep in thought as he scanned the rest of the neatly tabled notes.</p><p>“What is it?” Ten asked curiously, seeming just as baffled as Johnny at Taeyong’s sudden silence.</p><p>Taeyong shook his head slowly. “I just…I suddenly remembered something that Doyoung said recently. Let me think.” He closed his eyes, deep furrows between his brows for a long moment before he looked up once more with a strange expression of wonderment on his face.</p><p>“I think I know who you’re dating.”</p><p>Ten scrambled to his knees with a screech of anticipation, but just then, a violent banging came from their door, as if whoever was behind it was seeking sanctuary from an angry axe murderer. More confused than ever, Johnny walked over and threw the door open, only to be almost bowled over a by a wide-eyed, panting Yuta.</p><p>“It’s Taeil!” Yuta cried immediately, dodging around Johnny with all the agility of a striker and grabbing a stunned Ten by the shoulders. “I win! It’s Taeil!”</p><p>Johnny glanced back out the door to see Taeil ambling slowly up the corridor towards him, no doubt in lazy pursuit of Yuta, with the very same look of exasperated, tolerant amusement that was surely matched on Johnny’s own face.</p><p>“He saw your message preview on my phone,” Taeil said as he neared, as needlessly apologetic as ever. There was a dull flush darkening his neck, but he automatically leaned into Johnny’s side the moment he was in the room, looking daunted by the three pairs of eyes that had swivelled to them in an instant.</p><p>“Doesn’t matter,” Johnny said cheerfully as he shut the door. He took one quick look around at Ten’s flabbergasted expression, at Yuta half-frozen in anticipation and Taeyong hanging back, looking both surprised and not at the same time, and felt a wild laugh bubbling up inside of him.</p><p>“At least now I can do <em>this</em> in front of everyone.”</p><p>Then he promptly grabbed Taeil round the waist, leaned in, and planted a long, deep kiss right on those deliciously soft lips.</p><hr/><p>It was quite a while later before Johhny finally remembered to ask, “Wait, so how did you realise it was Taeil earlier?”</p><p>Taeyong blinked, looking slightly put on the spot. “We had a dinner with Taeil the same night you guys ate with your friends,” he said awkwardly. “Taeil wasn’t free for lunch, and I suddenly remembered Doyoung saying as a joke, ‘What if Taeil’s going on a date?’ I don’t know why I suddenly thought of it actually, but then I started trying to match Johnny’s schedule with Taeil’s. That’s all.”</p><p>“Taeyong is much sharper than he gives himself credit for,” Taeil said, shooting a small, fond smile at his friend.</p><p>“Hey, I got it right too,” Yuta argued. “What am I, chopped liver?”</p><p>“But you didn’t exactly have to use your brains for that, did you?” Ten retorted snappily. Quite astutely, Taeyong began surreptitiously shifting out of the way before he could get caught in the crossfire.</p><p>“You know, someone should probably tell the disaster duo that the mystery is solved so that they can stop planning their lives around stalking me,” Johnny mused casually, but he made no move to reach for his phone. Instead, he slung a comfortable arm over Taeil’s shoulders as they watched his friends begin to tussle.</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And that's a wrap! You may have noticed there's a second chapter to this - it's actually a first draft of what you just read, but I thought it might be of interest to some people. This fic was originally supposed to be from the perspectives of johnil's various friends, but I didn't change the timeline when I rewrote, so if you want to know how Winwin got the ball rolling and how the screenshot started to spread, you can check out the next chapter. (Also I was just very sad to think that I wrote ~2k for nothing lol.) But of course please remember it's just an early draft and kind of cuts off somewhere in the middle...</p><p>Anyway, here is the wonderful prompt that made this whole fic possible; I hope it didn't disappoint! (´｡ • ᵕ • ｡`)</p><blockquote>
  <p>Johnny has always be known as this one popular guy who never dated around the campus, so what happen when one day he decide to tweet "Morning my love" which he immediately delete<br/>Ensue the impromptu Detective squad consist of his friend circle to find out who 'this person' is.</p>
</blockquote>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>i.</em>
</p><p>It wasn’t easy to be popular in high school, but it wasn’t all that difficult to be well-known. After all, gossip had been spreading like wildfire in buildings full of bored, horny teens even before the era of smartphones.</p><p>University, however, was a whole different ballpark. The students were still undoubtedly horny, but most people had their own social circles that they were largely content with by then, and the campus was too damn big to ever know everyone in the same faculty anyway, much less the entire school. It was near impossible to be universally known.</p><p>Well, unless you were a certain Johnny Suh.</p><p>Taeyong had once described him as the epitome of ‘too good to be true’ – impossibly tall, offensively muscular, annoyingly funny and shockingly sporty. Not to mention the current President of the Law Society, organiser of the annual fundraiser for the local animal shelter the past two years running, and as far as everyone knew, very much single as a pringle. Whether or not he was ready to mingle was a little more dubious and quite heavily debated.</p><p>Whatever the case, some wanted him, others wanted to be him, and everyone knew him.</p><p>Even Sicheng, for some reason he could no longer quite recall and frankly didn’t care about anyway, had ended up following Johnny Suh on Twitter, and he didn’t think he’d even seen the guy in passing more than twice. He was reminded of that fact when he refreshed his Twitter feed one gloomy Monday morning, on his way to a morning class that he quite heartily regretted taking, and a brand-new tweet appeared on his timeline.</p><p>
  
</p><p>Sicheng had very little interest in anyone he wasn’t friends with and wasn’t much given to gossip, but even he knew that this tweet, whatever it was and whoever it was meant for, was very much out of the ordinary.</p><p>The famous Johnny Suh, expressing possible romantic affection for the first time in living memory? Could it be?</p><p>It took him less than half a minute to snap a screenshot of the tweet and send it off to his painfully nosy roommate. He didn’t accompany the picture with a message – there was no need to. Like Sicheng, Doyoung wasn’t big on spreading gossip, but unlike Sicheng, he certainly enjoyed knowing all of it. Taeyong often said that one could tell exactly how much Doyoung had heard through the grapevine by the size of his grin, and Sicheng had definitely seen that toothy smile get very wide indeed.</p><p>Taeyong was, in Sicheng’s opinion, a veritable fount of wisdom when it came to campus life.</p><p>Slumping down into the first empty seat he could find the moment he entered the lecture hall, Sicheng hovered his thumb over the tweet for a bare moment before pressing on it. Disinterested he might be, but the chaos that was certain to be unfolding in the replies proved too tempting for even his stoic indifference to resist.</p><p><em>This Tweet has been deleted</em>, he was told, and he couldn’t help furrowing his brows in surprise.</p><p>The message had been meant to be private, Sicheng realised, a flicker of intrigue stirring in him at last. Did this mean that Johnny Suh had a secret lover? Had he accidentally exposed himself with a sleepy morning message? Curiouser and curiouser.</p><p>Looking up, Sicheng spotted Kun strolling into the hall with a cup of coffee in his hand, looking far more awake and alert than anyone had the right to be on an overcast Monday morning. Setting his phone down, he raised a hand in a half-hearted greeting.</p><p>“Taeyong hurt himself again during dance yesterday,” was the first thing out of Kun’s mouth as he sat down. He looked vaguely disgruntled, and Sicheng straightened in his seat immediately, a blend of surprise and concern painting his features as he turned to frown at Kun.</p><p>Johnny Suh’s very existence faded from his thoughts in the blink of an eye. He didn’t know that by the end of the day, his screenshot – the only one in existence of the fateful tweet – would have spread to much of Johnny Suh’s inner circle, and the quest to uncover his mysteriously referenced ‘love’ would be well underway.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>ii.</em>
</p><p>To say that Doyoung was surprised to wake up to a text notification from Sicheng would be a gross understatement. He got along perfectly well with his roommate, but he could probably count on his fingers the number of times Sicheng had texted him in the past week. Sicheng had many strengths, but non-essential communication was not one of them.</p><p>With a vague frisson of worry buzzing in the back of his mind, Doyoung hastened to open the message, half-expecting a plea for help or something similarly desperate. Instead, he was faced with a single picture without a caption. A picture of a very, very interesting tweet from one Johnny Suh.</p><p>Pulling up his Twitter app, it took Doyoung only another three seconds to find out that the pictured tweet had already been deleted, probably moments after Sicheng’s wonderfully timed screenshot. That was just the nail in the coffin, wasn’t it? Only a tweet that meant <em>something </em>would have gotten deleted in such a hurry. How very fascinating.</p><p>With a deep groan, Doyoung stretched and slid out of bed with a satisfied grin. Sicheng really knew him far too well.</p><p>It was just past noon when he arrived at the small Japanese restaurant located at the corner of the library building, where Taeil was already waiting. The older man looked tired, his hair fluffy in the cool, dry air and his slim build dwarfed in a padded jacket. It was a rare day when Taeil wasn’t tired, even if he had slept for eight hours straight the night before.</p><p>“Yuta knows Johnny Suh well, doesn’t he?” Doyoung asked without preamble, the moment they had placed their orders.</p><p>Taeil’s head cocked ever so slightly, confusion marring his features as he blinked across the table at Doyoung. “Well, yeah,” he said at last, hesitantly. “Why do you ask?”</p><p>Straightening triumphantly, almost wiggling in his seat in excitement, Doyoung flipped his phone around so that Taeil could see the picture on his screen. “Johnny Suh tweeted something very unusual today, and I figured one of his friends might know something about it.” He snapped his fingers, one corner of his mouth curling up in sudden realisation. “Oh, Taeyong knows Ten from dance too. Hold on, I’ll just send this to our group chat then.”</p><p>It was only then that he registered how quiet Taeil had become, and how uncharacteristically goggle-eyed with shock he was, his mouth half-open as he stared at Doyoung. “You mean Johnny actually tweeted that?” he asked, sounding strained.</p><p>Doyoung paused in the middle of his furious typing to glance up at Taeil curiously. “Yeah, Sicheng sent the picture to me this morning. The tweet probably got deleted right after though,” he said, still scanning the odd expression on Taeil’s face with bemusement. “I didn’t know you cared so much about what Johnny Suh did.”</p><p>Taeil blinked rapidly, looking comically nervous. “I don’t,” he said weakly. “I just mean, you know – well, everyone knows Johnny.”</p><p>“Hm,” Doyoung muttered noncommittally as he returned his gaze to his phone.</p><p>He simply couldn’t understand it. Taeil was second only to Sicheng when it came to indifference to gossip, and his shiftiness made no sense to Doyoung at all. Oh, Taeil would smile at the sillier stories that Doyoung happily passed on at times, but he was largely a very private person, and he extended this attitude to others’ private lives as well.</p><p>Doyoung peeked back up at Taeil, who was typing on his phone with his bottom lip caught between his teeth, and wondered.</p><p>Was it a crush? Had Doyoung just destroyed his friend’s daydreams by implying that their campus superstar might be taken? The idea made him feel kind of bad, and he set his phone aside, determined to clear the furrow between Taeil’s brows.</p><p>“Hey,” he said, swiftly reaching out to tap the back of Taeil’s hand. “I was thinking of organising a Saturday lunch. The five of us, as usual. Sound good?”</p><p>Taeil looked up, his expression scrunching even further in thought for a moment. “How about dinner?” he suggested. “I’m already meeting another friend for lunch.” And finally, the lines of his face softened, his smile calm and warm as he met Doyoung’s eyes.</p><p>Doyoung beamed back, relief flooding through him. For the next hour, he let himself forget that Johnny Suh was probably dating someone in secret like some ridiculous hotshot celebrity, and that Taeil apparently had standards so high they could only be fulfilled by the most eligible perhaps-bachelor in town.</p><p>Besides, he had already sent the picture off to those who might hopefully know more than he did about this most intriguing development. The matter was out of his hands now.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>iii.</em>
</p><p>As Johnny’s best friend and roommate, and being unfortunately exposed to far more nonsensical antics daily than should be strictly legal, Ten continued to find the student body’s endless fascination with Johnny hysterically amusing. He was just…Johnny – unfailingly positive and effortlessly kind, but also full of bad jokes and certainly not as neat as Ten would like in an ideal roommate.</p><p>So frankly, after two whole years Ten still had no idea where all the adulation stemmed from.</p><p>All the same, it was no longer a surprise for him to receive random texts about Johnny at odd hours of the day, some asking for introductions and others boldly demanding a phone number right off the bat. Ten had to admit, however, that Taeyong was not one of the usual culprits. He must’ve been horrendously bored now that he was injured, Ten thought with pitying amusement as he opened the message.</p><p>
  
</p><p>There was a picture attached, and Ten had to read it thrice over before he understood exactly what he was seeing. Johnny being dumb enough to send off a tweet while half-awake – one that was clearly meant to be a private message at that – and not even managing to delete it before a screenshot was taken? Yeah, Ten could definitely see that happening.</p><p>The recipient, on the other hand, was very much a mystery. Johnny certainly did not call anyone in their friend group ‘my love’ – the mere thought of it was enough to make Ten’s stomach turn in horror. In fact, Ten didn’t think he’d ever seen or heard Johnny use such terminology to address anyone at all.</p><p>The easiest conclusion was thus also the most logical: Johnny <em>had </em>to be dating someone. Someone he probably called all sorts of cringy names like ‘my love’ and ‘honey bun’ and ‘sweetheart’.</p><p>The realisation was enough to make Ten leap to his feet, his heart pounding in sudden excitement. He had to tell someone! His best friend somehow managing to hide an entire relationship from him when they slept every night in the same room, took at least one common class each semester, and hung out together in their free time? What a miracle!</p><p>There was a bright grin on his face as he forwarded the picture to their group chat, along with two cheery messages:</p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>i think you have some explaining to do mr suh~~</em>
    <br/>
    <em>detective hats on boys :p</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>Jungwoo’s response was immediate. Johnny too took only minutes to see Ten’s messages, but lo and behold, no reply was forthcoming. Ten could already imagine him panicking, probably turning to his secret lover for help like a child who was about to be in trouble with his mother. Johnny was so often the one who did the teasing that Ten found it very difficult indeed not to savour this moment, when the tables were finally turned.</p><p>Flopping back down onto his bed and tucking his legs under his blanket, Ten sat back, ignoring his open laptop as his expression settled into something a little more perplexed. Who could this mystery person be? It wasn’t any of his friends, of that he was certain. Johnny trying to date Jaehyun, Jungwoo or Yuta in secret? Ten would voluntarily eat an entire apple if that turned out to be true.</p><p>The annoying thing about Johnny’s popularity was that it could be anyone, really. He knew and casually hung out with so many people that Ten couldn’t think of a particular person Johnny had been spending time with more than usual recently. Perhaps it was that girl he was completing a project with, or that guy who volunteered with him at the animal shelter. The possibilities were endless.</p><p>With a disgruntled sniff, Ten pulled his laptop towards him once more. The good thing was that he would surely only have to wait till dinner to satisfy his curiosity. There was no doubt at all in his mind that he’d just have to whine a little and Johnny, who had a far softer heart than should be allowed, would most likely cave in an instant.</p><p>Or maybe one of the others would manage to solve this great mystery before evening rolled around. Stranger things had happened after all.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>iv.</em>
</p><p>“Okay, but what if it’s Ten?” Jungwoo asked through a mouthful of sandwich as he tossed his bag at the foot of his bed.</p><p>Jaehyun sat down in silence for a moment, confused. “But then why would Ten expose their own secret relationship?”</p><p>Jungwoo only shrugged nonchalantly. “You have a point,” he conceded, and Jaehyun couldn’t help the amused sigh that huffed out of his mouth. He didn’t think he’d ever understand Jungwoo, even after months of coexisting together in the same space.</p><p>His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out just as Jungwoo did the same. “Yuta’s coming over,” he announced. “Says his class just ended and he wants to pool our brain power to solve this mystery.”</p><p>Johnny, probably still in the process of freaking out, was continuing to maintain his stubborn radio silence, although Jaehyun doubted he’d be able to keep his secret once he was faced with Ten in the flesh at the end of the day.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And that's pretty much where I realised that there was going to be exactly 0 johnil in this johnil fic if I continued in this vein, so I rewrote from Johnny's pov LOL. Nevertheless, I hope you guys enjoyed this lil behind the scenes snippet!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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